The research setting in this thesis is characterised by the contingencies
surrounding middle managers in a knowledge-intensive, public sector unit where they have to negotiate strategic change with different types of professionals. The phe o e o of h id p ofessio al (e.g. Kitchener, 2000) is particularly
pertinent to this study of business school deans as most are scholars, academic leaders, and strategic management practitioners. They formulate and execute strategy as managers in more than one professional field simultaneously – scholarship and academic leadership.
In the university context, Gouldner (1957, 1958) distinguished between
os opolita s a d lo als. The allegiance of cosmopolitans is to their disciplines and careers. In contrast, locals are faculty members who demonstrate greater loyalty to the organisation and an interest in parochial concerns. The competitive nature of business and management education means that leading business schools today employ a predominance of cosmopolitans who in some instances visit the institution infrequently possibly because they commute large distances and their overriding focus is on their personal scholarship. Some management scholars may be highly mobile in the international academic labour market. Academic salaries are strongly linked to reputational capital and the quality of individual research outputs (Moore et al, 2001). Meanwhile, professional support staff, i.e. administrators, might tend to function more like locals.
The bureaucratisation of academic faculty with the imposition of quality assurance mechanisms and a target culture could be interpreted as de-professionalisation. In
68 higher education with commercial pressures there are also issues about faculty incivility. Twale and De Luca (2008: xi) emphasize the pe so al, so ial, ultural, o ga izatio al a d st u tu al easo s fo a ade i e e s u p ofessio al behaviour. Bok (2003) suggests that academic faculty and students are colluding so professors can focus on their research by allowing grade inflation, while parents do not question the quality of education once their children have been accepted by reputable universities. The rise in the number of administrators (Ginsberg, 2011) e oa hi g o p ofessio al fields Kit he e , ea s that u i e sit professors may not see themselves as having a professional identity in the sense that professional support staff, administrators, and executives adopt an
occupational self-identity; instead many academics attach themselves more to scholarly rather than professional associations and become decoupled from the institutions that employ them. Bok (2013) also observes a curious paradox which is perhaps less apparent amongst some business school deans: A curious fact about leading business schools is that most of the professors lack either management t ai i g o a p a ti al usi ess e pe ie e.
As this thesis explores strategizing behaviours in a professionalised business unit, i.e. a professionalised university school, it is useful to reflect on definitions of professions and professionals and ask how academic faculty see themselves. Schriesheim (1977) argued that a profession has at least four properties besides expertise: an ethical code, cohesion, collegial enforcement of standards, and autonomy. Hall (1968) highlighted attitudes of the professional association as an important reference point, a commitment to public service, self-regulation through peer review, a vocation and autonomy without yielding to external
69 p essu es. Ke et al s : lite atu e e ie o p ofessio als e phasized expertise in an abstract body of knowledge gained over many years, autonomy, commitment to a specialism, identification with fellow professions/the profession, ethics beyond self-interest, professional conduct and respect for professional standards. F eidso s otio of the thi d logi suggests that professions control themselves within their own communities of practice and that professional associations mitigate the effects of market or organisational logics. Despite the constraints of government regulations and market forces impinging on
professorial behaviours, in higher education it is assumed that peer review in activities such as publishing, external examining, and faculty recruitment allow for this third logic. In their model of context influencing distributive leadership (DL), Currie and Lockett : p odu e a odel he e professional power is represented as a centrifugal force that, on the one hand, promotes DL through collegiality, but on the other, fragments or concentrates DL owing to its
hie a hi al a a ge e ts. In a recession when centripetal forces drive centralisation, professionals may find their autonomy greatly constrained. Moreover, “e ett “te , o se es: A ost i po ta t oti ato fo professionals is being able to do a good job for its own sake, rather than just to meet a target. If you take that ability away from professionals they get very u happ . Inevitably, there are concerns within professions over how they are controlled (Freidson, 1984) and whether they are being proletarianised (Navarro, 1988). Chapter four of this thesis reflects on debates related to management as a profession. In the university context, professional administrators who, for
70 ironically see themselves more as professionals than the management scholars they work with who teach executives and research management and generate theories the administrators may adopt.
A more nuanced focus on a specific category of organisational middle manager at the business unit level in this thesis helps to understand the role of the upper middle manager (UMM) in the setting of a professional school in a university. Wooldridge et al (ibid: 1192) recognise general divisional or strategic business unit heads as mid-level professionals. Yet in the strategic business unit (SBU) literature, the se io iddle a age s ole has ofte ee de o te tualised a d
depersonalised. For example, Govindarajan (1989) argued for matching an SBU a age s o pete es to the contingencies of a u it s o petiti e st ateg . He acknowledged, however, that he did not explore what these managers actually do. He o luded that: In addition to focusing on managerial characteristics there is a
lea eed to stud a age ial eha io s i id: .
This thesis espo ds i pa t to Bu gess a d Cu ie s all fo o e studies that e a i e h id MLMs [ iddle le el a age s] a d thei st ategi k o ledge
oke i g ole i pu li se to setti gs, othe tha health a e by focusing on higher education. Ferlie et al (1996: 194) define the hybrid middle manager as a
idge, ho oth ep ese ts the p ofessio al age da a d e odies...a
managerial one. This type of individual is arguably better placed than non-hybrid middle managers to co-ordinate the different professional disciplines that ensure strategy implementation. While Whitchurch (2008) has recognised the creation of a atego of thi d spa e le ded p ofessio als in universities who cross
71 boundaries between academic and professional domains, there have been no studies to date on the micro-strategies of scholar-leaders at the business unit level. Combining a strategy-as-practice perspective and contingency view, this research project illustrates how hybrid middle managers/leaders enact their strategic roles in brokering changes over time in professional public sector contexts.
What is interesting about this classification of middle manager is that hybrid professionals must navigate in several different worlds simultaneously, mediating and reconciling differences to realise official and emergent strategies. In the process, such hybrids may be ideally located to subvert systems to privilege their primary professional identities – in the case of deans as scholars or educators. Empirical studies on public sector hybrid middle managers and their strategic roles have examined healthcare professionals in particular such as hospital clinical directors (Kitchener, 2000) and directors of nursing (Carney, 2004). In education, academic middle managers in further education (Gleeson and Shain, 1999; Leader, 2004) and in universities (Hancock and Hellawell, 2003; Clegg and McAuley, 2005) have also been investigated in broad terms. The position of the hybrid middle manager over time may result in the postholder becoming deskilled in his or her original profession as they become more bureaucratised.
Fitzge ald a d Fe lie : lea l state that [h]ybrids are persons from a particular profession who are now managing professional colleagues and other staff. The a gue that this gi es su h le ded p ofessio als a ad a tage o e other individuals who are non-hybrid managers lacking the expertise of the
72 professionals they are managing. An important proviso, however, is that hybrid professionals should retain the expert knowledge that makes them credible with their peers. These ad a tages a e lost if the p ofessio al gi es up thei
professional practice, because they quickly become out of date, are distanced from colleagues and worse, are seen, politically, to have gone over to
a age e t i id . The ability to mobilise strategic activities when dealing with several professional camps and not to go native as a pure administrator or lose the respect of fellow scholars is challenging for business school deans.
Business schools represent an interesting form of hybrid organisation. In an earlier paper, Scott (1965: 65) used the te hete o o ous o ga isatio he e the administration retains control over most professional activities. Battilana and Dorado (2010: 1419) define hybrids as o ga izatio s that o i e i stitutio al logi s i u p e ede ted a s. Pache and Santos (2013: 996) see hybrids
a o l defi ed as o ga izatio s o ie ted to a d oth the a ket a d the common Good a d as sites of contradictions. Boyd et al (2009: 6) also describe hybrid organisations as values or mission driven, focused on the common good and the market. Powell (1990), however, suggests that such organisations are
eithe a ket o hie a h ut et o k fo s. Schumpeter (2009: 78) comments on the advantages and disadvantages of managing hybrids: Thei supporters have long argued that they enjoy the best of both worlds: the security of the public sector and the derring-do of the private sector. The biggest problem with hybrid companies is that they are inherently confused organisations, buffeted by all sorts of o t adi to p essu es.
73 In hybrid organisations, managers cope with ultiple fo s of atio alit
(Lounsbury, 2007: 289). Battilana and Dorado (2010: 1420) suggest that [d]ealing with multiple institutional logics is challenging for organizations because it is likely to trigger internal tensions that may generate conflicts among organization members. Heimer (1999: 18) notes the real dangers of operating in such an environment where: a poli o p a ti e that se ds a fa o a le essage to o e audie e a si ulta eousl se d a offe si e essage to a othe . In their study of medical schools, Dunn and Jones (2010: 114) noted the difficulties in dealing with plural logics. Similarly, in his work on public schools, Rowan (1982: 259-260) concluded that managers are constantly striving to balance competing views: Bala e is defi ed as the esta lish e t of ideological consensus and harmonious working relations among legislatures, publics, regulatory agencies, a d p ofessio al asso iatio s. Heimer (1999: suggests that [p] ofessio als should...be as concerned with the fortunes of their professions as with the futures of the organizations in which they work. However, the dilution of the
psychological contract and decoupling of internationally mobile specialists from leading research universities makes this difficult in practice for hybrid academic- leaders such as business school deans.
Managing experts (Quinn et al, 1996) and professionals (Maister 1993; Robertson and Swan 2003) is challenging as professionals usually do not wish to be managed. D u ke : asse ts that the professional man's logic is such that he [sic] has diffi ult u de sta di g the usi ess a 's [si ] easo i g. Leadership is often ambiguous in knowledge-intensive firms (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003).
74 (Raelin, 1989) when managing professionals, experts, knowledge workers,
scholars, however individuals in business schools label themselves. The question arises: What kinds of strategizing practices are useful in managing other experts? Fitzgerald and Ferlie (2000) suggest that professionals in organisations might best be managed by appealing to their professionalism in terms of quality standards, ethics and peer review, which returns power to the professionals and generalist hybrid managers rather than allowing non hybrid professional managers to dominate. Mi tz e g p oposes that o e t leade ship is ost app op iate in such situations. ‘opo a d Pa iai e : : a gue that leade ship i e pe t organizations needs to allow room for people to reveal their expertise and to e el…; it should liste , e ou age a d suppo t, a d efle t i i te a tio ith othe s efo e de idi g. Clearly, this requires time and patience.